Arun Jaitley tweet on Subhas Chandra Bose ‘shocks’ all

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said she was “shocked” by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s “hurtful tweet”. She was referring to his homage to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his “death anniversary.”

Not only Ms Banerjee but also the Opposition Forward Bloc and family members of the freedom fighter voiced their outrage. “Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was an icon of exemplary valour and sacrifice. We remember and pay him our respectful tribute on his death anniversary,” Mr Jaitley tweeted.

Ms Banerjee responded by tweeting, “Today is Raksha Bandhan. I don’t want to hurt anybody. But shocked with @arunjaitley ji hurtful tweet this morning on Netaji. We’re all hurt.”

Mr Jaitley deleted the post after the protest from Ms Banerjee and others. Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas said his party condemned Mr Jaitley’s statement. More significantly, Netaji’s grand-nephew Chandra Bose, who contested as BJP candidate against Ms Banerjee in Bhowanipore Assembly constituency, also voiced his displeasure and even demanded an apology.

Mr Biswas said Mr Jaitley apparently believed Netaji was killed in the air crash in Taihoku on August 18, 1945.

“The Mukherjee Comm-ission in its report had debunked the theory of the plane crash. The Congress government, for its convenience, did not accept the report. We are surprised that a senior BJP leader like Mr Jaitley is toeing the Congress line, but then the BJP has a tendency to distort history,” he claimed.

Mr Biswas also dismissed the declassification of Netaji files by Narendra Modi government as nothing but BJP’s natak.

“Mr Jaitley should have remembered that the government of India shelved the proposal to confer the Bharat Ratna on Netaji posthumously because that would have meant that his death was an established fact, which it was not,” he claimed. He was referring to Narsimha Rao government’s decision in 1992. Serious Opposition from Left Front government in Bengal and Netaji’s family forced it to backtrack on its decision.

Netaji’s niece Chitra Bose, who said she was “shocked beyond words”, also referred to the Mukherjee Commission report in support of her argument that there was no evidence of Netaji’s death on August 18, 1945.

Another section of Netaji’s family believe a plane crash did take place more than 70 years ago in Taiwan and that he died in the crash.